July 9, 2014

Both conservatives and liberals struggle with pluralism. Everyone wants everyone else to think like they do. This article picks on liberals for their disdain for Hobby Lobby, but, as I said, conservatives have their blind spots too.

April 8, 2014

Continuing in yesterday’s vein, here is a quote by Gene Veith, Jr.

But laypeople–and their pastors–must remember that they do not have to be doing “church work” in order to be working for God. It is easy to spend every night at a church meeting, “doing the Lord’s work,” but the doctrine of vocation teaches that spending time with your spouse and children and fulfilling the demands of your job are also ways of working for God–or rather, of God working through you.

October 16, 2013

I read an insightful blog yesterday over at True Woman about spiritual gifts. Essentially, the blog said that the Bible doesn’t command us to discern our spiritual gifts. I know that I’ve sung this song before, but I think it is worth revisiting. The problem, as I see it, is that we can evaluate ministry opportunities based on our perceived gifts. When confronted with a need, we might dismiss the opportunity because the need calls for gifts that we don’t think we have. This isn’t what believers are called to do.

Sadly, I’ve dismissed ministry opportunities because I didn’t think that the need matched my gifts. I say this to say that I’m preaching to the choir. I realize that there are often needs that we can’t meet. For example, there are financial needs that are way beyond our bank accounts. On balance, there are those opportunities that come our way that are well within our skill sets that we dismiss without any serious thought because we don’t feel gifted in a particular area.

This sort of ministry evasion has many expressions. We might not visit a skilled nursing home because we don’t think we are good at encouraging people struggling with end of life issues. There might be a family with a desperate financial need that we don’t feel compelled to help even with a sandwich because we don’t have the gift of giving. You get the idea.

While we don’t find encouragement to track down our spiritual gift in Scripture, we do find many admonitions to help people with needs. Hebrews 13:16 for example says, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.” Notice there is no exemption here. Ministry is need-driven, not gift-driven.

How about the Sheep and the Goats passage in Matthew 25? You probably remember what the goats didn’t do. They didn’t feed Jesus or give him something to drink or welcome him or clothe him or visit him in prison. How did they miss serving Jesus? By failing to serve his brothers they failed to serve Him. There is a unity between Jesus and his people. Again, there is no gift exemption here. I think we ought to be very wary of playing that card. It leads to goat-like behavior.

Moses tried to evade ministry using this tactic. In Exodus 4:10 Moses said, “I am not eloquent.” He was saying, “Hey God, this isn’t my gift.” God responded in essence by saying, “Who made your mouth?” Ultimately, Moses was critiquing the way God had made him. In v13 of that passage, Moses begged God to send someone else. The next line in v14 says, “Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses …” Avoiding service by claiming that God didn’t put me together in a way appropriate for the task at hand is not wise. We don’t want God angry with us.

Again, I realize that there are many needs that we can’t address. However, often we don’t serve because of laziness (we don’t want to do it), faithlessness (we don’t believe God will enable us), and lovelessness. James 4:17 says, “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” The right thing more often than not is to serve, not look for a way out. Isn’t this simply following Jesus? Roll up your sleeves, quit griping and start serving.